


Previous Possessions

by lbk_princen



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Canonical Character Death, yknow. ghost stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 12:31:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13318140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lbk_princen/pseuds/lbk_princen
Summary: Gansey has something that belongs to Noah, and isn't sure what to do about it.SPOILERS!





	Previous Possessions

Adam rummaged through Gansey’s bag, as he had been instructed, searching for the journal. Gansey was driving the Pig, drumming his fingers lightly on the wheel. They were on their way to investigate an anomaly that Gansey had weaseled out of Helen; apparently she’d spotted a rather enormous deer on a fly-by. It could have been just that, an above-average sized deer, but in the forests of Henrietta, things were not always “just that”. Gansey theorized that it was either a regular deer somehow affected by the ley line, or perhaps it was something Other that had been drawn to the line’s energy. 

 

Feeling around the bottom of the pack, Adam’s fingers met something small and hard and distinctly-shaped. Curious, he pulled the artifact out, and a set of keys jangled in front of his eyes. “What are these for?” He asked. One of them was obviously a car key, and the other one had little yellow smiley faces across its whole surface. There was a fraying purple lanyard attached to the keyring. Overall it was a very un-Gansey thing to be found inside of Gansey’s bag.

 

Gansey took his eyes off the road for a moment to see what Adam was holding up, and his expression had shifted minutely when he turned forward again. It was the kind of shift Adam probably wouldn’t have noticed if he and Gansey hadn’t been friends. “They’re for the Mustang,” he said casually.

 

“Keys for the Mustang?” Adam said, a bit incredulous. “ _ Noah’s _ Mustang, that we found in the woods? Are you sure?”

 

Gansey nodded and gripped the Pig’s steering wheel with a bit more force than necessary. “I checked.”

 

For a moment Adam said nothing, simply rubbing the frayed edge of the lanyard between his thumb and forefinger. “Where did you get them?” he asked, eventually.

 

“In Whelk’s desk. It was a while ago.”

 

“Are you going to give them back to Noah?” Adam closed his fist around the keys. “Why didn’t you sooner?”

 

The Pig’s left turn signal was all Adam got in response, for a few moments. Then Gansey sighed softly. “He’s very avoidant, when it comes to topics surrounding his death. I don’t know how he’d react.”

 

“I guess,” Adam muttered. “It probably wouldn’t help that you got them off Whelk. If he kept them as some sort of…  _ souvenir _ , I think I might throw up.”

 

Gansey nodded. “I was thinking about that. I think either that’s what happened, or he took them by mistake and kept them out of guilt.”

 

Adam looked at Gansey. “You think he felt guilty?”

 

Gansey shrugged and urged the Pig on a little faster. “He killed someone- a friend, no less. Unless Whelk was a complete psychopath - and I’m more inclined to believe sociopath than psychopath, personally - then he must have at least felt some kind of remorse.”

 

“I dunno, man. He always gave me the creeps. I wouldn’t be surprised.” Adam looked down at the keys in his hands and repeated his question from earlier. “Are you going to give them back to him?”

 

“Do you think I should?” Gansey glanced over at Adam again, his forehead slightly creased.

 

“ _ Yes _ , I think you should. They’re  _ his. _ ”

 

“Maybe I’ll just leave them on his bed,” Gansey mused.

 

Adam frowned. “I think you just need to give them to him. We don’t even know if he uses that room. Half the time he says he’s going to his room he just closes the door and when you try and go in there he’s just gone.”

 

“I wonder where he goes,” Gansey murmured.

 

“Maybe you could ask him when you hand him his keys.”

 

Gansey held his breath for a few seconds, tapping his thumbs against the steering wheel. Then he let the air whoosh from his lungs and he asked, “Should I tell him where I got them?”

 

Adam hesitated. “Well, I wouldn’t lie to Noah.” Gansey hummed his agreement. There was nothing to be gained from lying to the dead, and Adam and Gansey were both fairly certain that the dead could tell when someone was lying to them anyway. The two of them were silent from there.

 

Helen’s lead turned out nothing exciting; they searched around saw no deer at all, let alone any of exceptional size. The spot wasn’t even as close to the ley line as Gansey would have expected for unusual activity or strange sightings. The two of them got back in the Pig, and Gansey drove Adam to work, then back to Monmouth alone.

 

When he came up the stairs into the main room, keys heavy in his pocket, he found Ronan and Noah sitting on the floor, making paper airplanes and listening to Billy Talent. “What’s this for?” He asked over the guitar and mournful vocals, waving at the pile of completed planes between them. “School project?”

 

Ronan looked up at Gansey. His smile was a dangerous thing. “We’re gonna launch them from the roof.”

 

“And how,” Gansey switched off the speaker that was sitting on his desk, cutting off the music. “Do you plan on getting onto the roof?”

 

Ronan went back to folding. “The window.”

 

Gansey’s gaze shifted to Noah. “You’re going to let him climb out the window and onto the roof?”

 

Noah shrugged. “I think it’ll be funny to watch him try.”

 

Ronan grinned fiercely, and dropped his finished paper construct on the top of the pile. “Watch me  _ succeed, _ I think you mean.”

 

Gansey kept his eyes on Noah, who grew visibly uncomfortable. “I don’t want to talk about him,” the blond said, very softly.

 

Gansey blinked. “Who?”

 

Noah remained silent, pushing his own plane towards the pile and taking another sheet of paper from the stack beside him. He kept his gaze pointedly away from Gansey and on his task.

 

“What are you guys talking about?” Ronan asked, uncrossing his legs and stretching them luxuriously.

 

Gansey hesitated. “By ‘him’ do you mean Whelk?”

 

Noah balked. He pressed his hands flat to the floor, pinning the piece of paper there, and his shoulders hunched forward. “I  _ don’t _ want to talk about him,” he repeated, just as quiet but a bit more forceful.

 

“That’s fine, we don’t have to.” Gansey reached into his pocket and closed his hand around the keys. “I know it upsets you.”

 

Noah didn’t reply, just curled his open palms into fists against the floor and closed his eyes. He seemed to blur around the edges for a moment, and Gansey was afraid he might disappear.

 

Wordlessly, Gansey went to crouch in front of Noah and carefully placed the keys down between his hands. 

 

“What are those?” Ronan asked curiously.

 

Noah opened his eyes, and then they widened. His shoulders dropped, and he picked them up, as carefully as if they were holy treasure. “My keys,” he mumbled, in awe.

 

“Your keys,” Ronan repeated. Then he looked up at Gansey, eyebrows raised. “His  _ keys _ ?”

 

Gansey looked the other way, rubbing his lip with his thumb. “Whelk had them,” he said simply.

 

“My keys,” Noah said again, reverently. He closed his hands around them and held them close to his chest. “Thank you,” he said, looking up at Gansey. Gansey thought that there were very few times he had seen Noah look so alive. Then Noah’s gaze dropped, and he looked at his keys again, frowning. “Why would he keep them...?” He murmured. “They’re incriminating. The keys to the car right by the site of a… of a…”

 

“You don’t have to say it,” Ronan said, reaching over and stilling Noah’s shaking hands with his own.

 

“I thought maybe he kept them because he felt guilty,” Gansey suggested, shrugging.

 

Noah tightened his fingers around the keys. Ronan rumbled, “That doesn’t mean you have to forgive him.”

 

Gansey stood up, tucked his hands in his trouser pockets. “I’m not saying he does. Noah, do you-” he hesitated, then continued in a gentler voice, “-do you know why Welk might have had them in the first place?”

 

Noah whispered, “I gave them to him.” 

 

Ronan snorted. “You gave Barrington Whelk the keys to your red Mustang GT?”

 

Noah closed his eyes, his eyebrows coming together. “He said he knew where he was going, and I wanted to eat my burger-” he shuddered violently, and the keys fell out of his hands- or perhaps his hands had stopped existing for a moment, and so they had fallen for a lack of something holding them up.

 

“It’s okay, Noah, we’re not asking you to remember,” Gansey said, dropping to one knee. He and Ronan, in unspoken agreement, held out their hands to Noah, who took them gratefully. Gansey felt the warmth get sucked out of his arm, starting from his hand and moving up through his shoulder. It seemed to help Noah though, at least. When the blond let go, Gansey flexed his fingers ponderously. They were awfully cold and felt tingly.

 

Delicately, Noah picked up his keys again. He rubbed his thumb over the patterned key, which Gansey assumed was for his house. He wondered suddenly if Noah had been to his house at all since he died. Noah whispered, “I could go back to my house.”

 

It was always unsettling when Noah did that, seemingly tapping into his mind. Gansey didn’t know why it happened, but the thought that Noah always knew what he was thinking - the thought of  _ anyone _ always knowing what he was thinking - made him uncomfortable. 

 

“Sorry,” Noah mumbled. “I can stop.”

 

“Fuck the house, what about the car?” Ronan demanded, ignoring their near-silent exchange. “I wanna see you behind the wheel of your baby, Casper, how about it?”

 

Noah shook his head very quickly, and kept shaking for several seconds. “I don’t want to go back there again,” he said when he was done, tipping his chin towards his chest. 

 

Ronan inhaled and exhaled loudly through his nose. “It always pains me to see a car with potential like that not get put to good use, but, fine. Your choice, I guess.” Chainsaw fluttered down from where she had been roosting up in the rafters, and settled on Ronan’s shoulder with a soft croak. He gave her a fond belly-tickle with one finger.

 

There was a short pause where Gansey said nothing, Noah kept rubbing his keys between his fingers, exploring the familiar textures, and Ronan pet his bird absently. Then Gansey toed one of the paper planes that had fallen to the wayside. “How many of these do you plan to make?” He asked.

 

“I think this is probably a good amount,” Ronan said, sizing up the pile. There had to be almost two dozen of them. He grinned at Gansey, and his lips were full of mischief. “Want to help us fly them?”

 

Gansey chuckled. “Only if you use the fire escape to get on the roof. Hardcore parkour is not necessary.”

 

Ronan stared at him. “This place has a fire escape?”

 

Gansey smirked at the betrayed look on Ronan’s face. “Of course. It’s out Noah’s window.”

 

Noah scrambled to his feet, grinning widely, and ran towards his bedroom. “Hardcore parkour!” He shouted as he hurled himself over his bed and out the window, onto the fire escape, with keys gripped tightly in his hand. The metal platform clanged under his feet. He laughed joyously, holding onto the rail and leaning out over the drop.

 

Ronan jumped up as well. “Get back here, you little shit, I’m not carrying all these by myself!” Chainsaw flapped her wings a few times for balance and said  _ kerah! _ as he charged after Noah.

 

Gansey shook his head, then picked up the paper airplane by his foot and followed them, a smile on his face.


End file.
